Singing in the Dead of Night
by April Rane
Summary: Jasper has another slip up, and his little sister takes on the task of cheering him up. Set a few years after BD. Minimal spoilers. Familial fluff and love. R/R


_a/n I'm starting to like one shots. I may just make a series of one shots that I update when I feel the urge. I like things that don't have long term commitments :)_

_Anyway, there's no romance here, so hit that back button if that's what you're looking for. Not that I have anything against B/J (*giggle*), I just don't write it well. This is just family doing family things. _

_I don't own the Beatles, "Blackbird," or Twilight. I just mix the three.  
_

**SINGING IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT**

The house was a bustle of activity, just like it always was when this happened. Jasper tried to ignore the feelings of his family, but it was hard. Anger, pity, frustration...

Hopefulness? That was a new one.

Jasper heard movement in the darkness of the drive, and he looked up. As she danced back into the house, Alice dropped a kiss on the top of his head. When he looked up at her, she reached down a hand to smooth his hair. Her smile made him feel a little better.

"Thirty years is pretty good, Jazz," she said cheerfully. "That's a new record for you."

"Shouldn't have happened," he muttered, looking down at his hands.

"It was my fault," she said, and her voice allowed for no refusal. "I should have hunted with you way before. And anyway, it's water under the boat now. Nobody's mad at you—"

"Except for Rosalie."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Rosalie is mad at life." There was a hiss from inside, and Alice heaved a sigh. "She'll get over it. She always does." Leaning down, Alice took his face in her hands and kissed him, more tenderly than someone as monstrous as him deserved. He kissed her back, grateful, as always, that he had her to lean on.

"I'm going to finish packing up my closet," she said. "Love you."

"You, too."

Jasper sat alone on the porch, face in his hands, for a long time after that. As they usually did, his family gave him a wide berth, knowing that he would not be in the mood for anything other than self loathing. It was a surprise, then, when he heard soft footsteps coming closer to him. They were too heavy for Alice, but too soft for Rosalie or Esme.

Bella slid onto the bench next to him, and he glanced over at his newest sister. She was sitting with a guitar—his guitar, in fact—on her lap. Her wide butterscotch eyes stared at him, and she had her full bottom lip out in a very cute pout. It was the same pout that Renesmee gave him when she wanted something he wasn't supposed to give her. It worked every time.

Bella held out the guitar. "Will you play something?"

Jasper heaved a sigh, trying not to look at her face. He'd be unable to refuse if he looked at her face. Renesmee hadn't learned how to look extremely cute on her own—she'd had a very good teacher. "I'm really not in the mood right now, Bella."

"Please?" God, he could almost physically _feel_ her pouting. He knew, from her feelings, that she was up to some kind of mischief, though. Under the mischief, though, was the feeling he often got from her—a sort of happy content with her life, content that didn't make sense at the moment. "Please, big brother?" She put her face in front of his so that he was forced to look at her. All she needed was curly bronze hair and she'd be her daughter.

He heard Edward laugh inside.

Bella heaved a sigh, and got to her feet. "Guess I'll have to go see who else can cheer me up," she said, and she walked slowly, dragging her feet. "I was gonna see if you'd teach me how to play, but I guess I'll have to go bother Emmett."

Jasper couldn't help smiling. If anyone in the Cullen family played cute baby sister best, it was Bella. Rosalie was a good sister, certainly, but Bella reminded him of the distant memories he had of his own sister, when he was human.

"Come here," he said, giving up trying to fight what he was sure would be a championship pout-fest. "What do you want to learn?"

"Oh, I don't care." Bella skipped back to Jasper, sitting back down and watching as he hoisted his seldom-played guitar. "Something not too hard." She thought for a moment, before her face lit up. "Do you know 'Blackbird?'"

Jasper smiled. "I do."

"Teach it to me."

Two hours later, Jasper was crouched in front of Bella, watching as her fingers moved uncertainly along the strings. She was frowning, a little crease between her eyes, and she was biting on one lip as she concentrated on where she was putting her fingers.

"Is my thumb right this time?" she asked, leaning back slightly as she stared at her hand.

"Yeah. Now, just make sure you don't let your fingers get too flat. No, like... Yeah, just like that. Try it again."

"Am I doing this right?"

"Sounds right to me."

"Really?" Her face lit up like a kid at Christmas and, despite himself, he felt a little better. Her eyes stared into his excitedly as if there was nothing different about them. As if they weren't glowing crimson...

"Yep." He focused on her excitement, and managed to forget again why they were out here in the first place.

She stopped playing, and smiled sheepishly. "I forget the words."

Jasper laughed and reached for the second guitar that _someone_ had left leaning against the house earlier. Edward, he thought, recalling a slightly smug feeling as Edward had seemingly forgotten to do something and abandoned the guitar he'd been carrying. He sat down next to Bella on the bench. "I'll do it with you."

For three minutes, Jasper played with his sister when he normally would have been sulking. He forgot, as he strummed and sang along with her, that there was even a reason to sulk. He laughed along with Bella as she made little mistakes here and there, stopping now and then to adjust her hand position. There were words, and he sang them with her. His perpetually happy sister was glowing with self-pride as she played along with him, and the weight of the last two weeks of guilt lifted for the first time.

Maybe moving wouldn't be so bad, he thought, as he stopped playing to watch her. He felt a swell of his own pride as she played on without him. He was suspicious that the only reason she had come out here was to distract him, to cheer him up and stop him from putting out sulky vibes over the whole family. Nevertheless, he was grateful. It was just what Bella did, whether it was intentional or not.

"You know what this song is about?" Jasper asked, as his fingers took on a mind of their own.

"No." Bella stopped playing to give him her attention.

He continued strumming the chords of the song as he spoke, almost unaware that he was doing it. He didn't play often, but when he did, he almost felt like a different person.

"In the sixties, in the United States, there was a lot of racial tension. You can read about it, watch in in movies, but it was a completely different experience to be there." Jasper frowned a little. "I used to be a little racist, I suppose, when I was human. I lived in Texas. It was different in the south. But I started to see that they were all human, all bled red, all smelled appealing." Heaving a sigh, Jasper knew he had to stop talking about blood.

"Anyway, the sixties were a really crazy time to be human. And all the sudden, there was this song on the radio. You actually managed to pick Carlisle's favorite Beatles song," Jasper said, laughing. "Paul McCartney wrote it after Little Rock, in response to everything that was going on. The lyrics take on a whole other meaning when you look at the in the historical context of the time." His fingers played on. "It's kind of about a person. A woman."

Bella smiled and drew her feet up under her. "So, maybe someone who's had a kind of hard life? Waiting for... what are the words?"

"'You were only waiting for this moment to arrive.'" Jasper tapped his foot softly along as he played, and the song was complete.

"Hmm." Bella nodded thoughtfully. "Good song for you."

Jasper frowned. "What do you mean?"

Bella shrugged and got to her feet. She smiled down at him. "Thanks for the lesson," she said simply, and she disappeared into the dark night.

"Anytime."

Jasper set the guitar aside and kicked his feet out in front of him.

"Good thing we don't have neighbors," Alice said, hopping up on the porch and into his lap. "It's pretty late."

Jasper smiled and wrapped his arms around his wife. "Black sheep singing in the dead of night," he muttered softly, but he smiled.

"You're not the black sheep," Alice said, and he could feel her amused exasperation. "But if we have to have one, I guess it could be Jacob." Across the lawn, Jacob made a noise of indignation, but Alice ignored him. "Time to go."

Her hair was soft against his face as he nodded. "Rosalie still mad at me?"

"No." Alice's fingers toyed with his curls. "She actually feels kind of bad, I think."

Jasper laughed. "That's a first."

Alice buried her face in his chest. "Was it worth it?" she whispered.

It was the same thing she had asked him on their first night with the Cullens, over sixty years before. Jasper thought for a moment about the family they had come into, of his adopted brothers and sisters, of his father and mother figure. He thought of the forgiveness they gave him every time he messed up. He thought of tonight, of his sister's effort to distract him for a few hours and cheer him up. He answered Alice's question quietly, but firmly, and the same as he had then.

"Yes."


End file.
